Previously-
Some new info came to light on this...
So, I said in the Poe review...
And I swear, with the exception of one, the stories in "Creepshow" are all Poe rips.
"The Crate "especially is blatantly a mashup of "Rue Morgue" and "The Oblong Box".
Nope, "The Crate" is a Poe/Lovecraft mashup.
The crate-monster is both the monkey from "Rue Morgue" and one of the ghouls from "Pickman's Model".
The crate and the obnoxious wife are from "Oblong Box".
The crate says "Antarctic Expedition" so that ties in to "Mountains Of Madness" which itself is a sequel to "Arthur Pym".
I guess I'll flesh out the others too....
"Father's Day" is a variation on "M. Valdemar".
"The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" is a comedy play on "The Colour Out Of Space".
"Something to Tide You Over" is kind of a mashup of "The Premature Burial" and "Ligeia"
"They're Creeping Up on You!" is kind of a modern anti-racism take on "The Masque of the Red Death".
And, that's that.
See you next time.
1 comment:
From "The Dispossessed," p. 119 in my copy:
"Most young Annaresti felt that it was shameful to be ill: a result of their society's very successful prophylaxy, and also perhaps a confusion arising from the analogic use of the words 'healthy' and 'sick.' They felt illness to be a crime, if an involuntary one. To yield to the criminal impulse, to pander to it by taking pain relievers, was immoral. They fought shy of pills and shots. As middle age and old age came on, most of them changed their view. The pain got worse than the shame. The aide gave the old men in Ward Two their medicine, and they joked with her. Shevek watched with dull incomprehension."
Hah, contrast this with the problems in our own society, where getting sick is a crime because you simply won't have the fucking money to pay for it! Just struck me as a very relevant passage.
From p.175-76 in my copy:
...."'You see, I don't write the way I was trained to write at the conservatory. I write dysfunctional music.' He smiled more sweetly than ever. 'They want chorales. I hate chorales. They want wide-harmony pieces like Sessur wrote. I hate Sessur's music. I'm writing a piece of chamber music. Thought I might call it The Simultaneity Principle. Five instruments each playing an independent cyclic theme; no melodic causality; the forward process entirely in the relationship of the parts. It makes a lovely harmony. But they don't hear it. They won't hear it. They can't!'
Shevek brooded a while. 'If you called it The Joys of Solidarity,' he said, 'would they hear it?'
'By damn!' said Bedap, who was listening in. 'That's the first cynical thing you ever said in your life, Shev. Welcome to the work crew!'
Salas laughed. 'They'd give it a hearing, but they'd turn it down for taping or regional performance. It's not in the Organic Style.'
'No wonder I never heard any professional music while I lived in Northsetting. But how can they justify this kind of censorship? You write music! Music is a cooperative art, organic by definition, social. It may be the noblest form of social behavior we're capable of. It's certainly one of the noblest jobs an individual can undertake. And by its nature, by the nature of any art, its a sharing. The artist chares, it's the essence of his act. No matter what your syndics say, how can Divlab justify not giving you a posting in your own field?'
'They don't want to share it,' Salas said gleefully. 'It scares 'em.'
Bedap spoke more gravely: 'They can justify it because music isn't useful. Canal digging is important, you know; music's mere decoration. The circle has come right back around to the most vile kind of profiteering utilitarianism. The complexity, the vitality, the freedom of invention and initiative that was the center of the Odonian ideal, we've thrown it all away. We've gone right back to barbarism. If it's new, run away from it; if you can't eat it, throw it away!"
Okay, Ayn Rand would have SHIT HER NYLONS reading this, if she had (and hey, she was alive in 1974! She could've!) This really has to be contrasted with when they grill Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead" where he says he's just doing his architecture because he doesn't like how buildings look and he wants to change it. The bits about how Salas makes music that makes sense to him, regardless of whether or not the powers that be understand it, but then we go from that to Shevek's conjecture that music is a social act, would make for a great topic for a class essay about individualism.
And then, of course, the next paragraph is about Shevek ruminating on how one has to reassert the validity of the Annares way of life: "one need only act, without fear of punishment and without hope of reward: act from the center of one's soul."
That turns Randroidery right on its head, huh? Neat trick, that.
I wonder if there are any pot shots at $cientology in this book; by 1974, L. Ron would have had plenty of money...
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